We need to talk about Skull Merchant
Comments
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Make a SWF, and play me on Skull Merchant. You can play any map you want. You can bring any items except toolboxes and BNPs.
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Who won is almost secondary here and a lot of people are missing the point.
The real point here is the top comp team in the world got stalled for 53 minutes by someone with absolutely no chase skill and only kicked gens nonstop and only stopping to occasionally slug people if the SM player had any actual game sense at all and realized they coulda gotten the Nea out of the game making the game functionally over and they would have won.
Meaning you can functionally stall games in pubs for basically free if you really want to and that isn't healthy game design and not good for the growth of DBD, if Skull Merchant was actually widely played and played only this way I would bet she would actually get changed in 2-3 weeks cuz nobody would wanna play DBD.
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Shes literally B tier if 3 gens dont spawn close to each other (Which is fine). Skull Merchant isnt the problem its the fact 3 gens can spawn where ANY killer can easily hold the same 3 gen that she pushes it over. If the gens are even moderately too far apart she's extremely easy to disable. The problem isn't SM its 3 gens in general she just exploits that already broken system.
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Yes yes that's nice but let's compare the dev time it would take to change something fundamental about the game (recoding gen placement algorithm) and all its potential quirks vs just nerfing a single killer that's not prominent but leads to extreme outliers in gamelength.
They can just revisit her later for buffs once a longer-term change gets put into place. There is zero reason she should remain untouched.
After all the people that play her love the character not her 3-gen playstyle right? Shouldn't be an issue then.
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It doesn’t even matter if gens are super close to each other. As long as they’re on the same side of the map, anyone can hold a 3 gen hostage against most teams with this killer. People are going to learn how to play this still and they’re basically not learning how to play DBD.
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I dont think slightly pushing gens away or changing whats most likely a number variable of how close they can spawn will take huge amounts of dev time lol. Stop trying to make every single killer F tier to fix other issues this game has. When SM gets nerfed what then? Then all the people who played her to 3 gen go to knight and the same issue happens except those of us who actually like her now no longer get to play her because shes either
A. Vehemently awful. There is no solution to fixing her 3 gen that doesn't also GUT her. Take away exposed then drones aren't threats, make it so you cant put drones near gens then huge sections of maps will be deadzones for her power, take away her speedboosts then shes just an M1 killer who can see your location every now and then.
B. Not at ALL what we wanted. The other option which is only preferrable because its the only chance of keeping her in a somewhat viable state is to rework her kit heavily which obviously those of us who paid for her didn't pay for.
I have one idea that would fix this problem for skull merchant and keep her how she is for those of us who do love her(Make it so drones can't be placed if their zone comes within a 10 meter range of a generator but remove her drone distance limit) but I doubt they'd incorporate the full thing and probably only the nerf which is the worst part lmao
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Suggesting a let's say Clown can hold a 3 gen in the same way a Merchant can is a bit disingenuous no? They both can for at least some period of time but the Clown is not making the game last 50 minutes. The only other killer that could even come close to doing that is maybe Hag.
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Depends on the map. Some maps can have 3 gens spawn on the same side and she's still C-B tier on those maps even with 3 genning. But I wrote a more detailed response about SM above however.
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Hag is like F tier since you can just wipe her traps now lol but Clown can throw a bottle at a gen and get a good 10 seconds of no one being allowed to touch that gen along with a loud noise notification and a slowdown if they try.
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Also I wanna point out I did say the problem always will exist she just is one of the killers who can fully take advantage and exploit this design flaw. I don't think shes the problem at all its entirely on maps being allowed to spawn 3 gens
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you really have to appreciate using a game the killer lost to prove that the killer is broken. it makes perfect sense.
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And then the Knight will get nerfed in that regard as well, the sad reality is that this game has incredibly fickle and fragile coding, things break all the damn time for seemingly no reason. It is most likely going to take a very long time for them to fix the 3-gen issue, I definitely do not want SM holding games hostage, especially as the strat gets more traction while we wait for 3-gen change.
So they should nerf her and whoever else is causing these outliers, sucks for the people that play them, but if people can win just fine on "F-tier" killers then those players will adapt and be fine anyways.
Reworks are part of the potential package when it comes to buying killers, I don't really think its false advertising. That's just what happens since killers are the power role and have big influence over the match.
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I haven't played or played against Hag since the change honestly so I'm not sure I just remember having my own 20-25 minute Hag games back when she was peak lol.
That being said I can't imagine a Clown holding that 3 gen for the same amount of time the SM did or come anywhere close. Part of the equation is the skill checks were silent due to the shotgun speakers and how much lost progress that added up to and add in the fact how much the clown player would have to stop and reload Clown is holding that 3 gen 8-10 minutes tops not 53 minutes.
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They werent just failing Overcharge skill checks, majority of the time they were failing Oppression skill checks because of Shotgun Speakers.
Overcharge is fine, Merchant is the issue here
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i don't have the link but Otz posted the vid on his channel show casting the match.
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You really have to appreciate missing the point.
The point is that they put in a MINIMUM amount of effort and were not equally skilled as compared to their opponents. They still nearly won against the literal best of the best. The point is that even against top-tier coordination and top-tier skill, SM is still able to stall out games for 53 minutes by just going in a circle and kicking gens.
If the SM player had been more experienced (they are a pub player with about 800 hours, iirc), they very likely could've held the game for 60 minutes and won.
That's the point and that's the issue.
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Basically yeah.
People are placing too much emphasis on the survivor team being “the best team in the world.”
basically yes SK needs some changes but the survivor team screwed up letting the killer get a solid 3 gen in the first place.
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She more less spawned in the 3 gen what did you want them to do? They can do the 3 gen first but it'd still last just as long the order doesn't really matter that much.
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😆
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So long as killers can see the auras of gens and can spawn next to a 3-gen (both of which were true in this game,) We cannot fault survivors for getting 3-genned.
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Why do people keep saying they "let the killer have the 3 gen" when people have explained why it doesn't matter what order the gens are completed? How are you arriving at that conclusion?
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clown 3 gen is weaker then skull merchant 3 gen. he has no 3 gen add-on's. he can still 3 gen. Just not as well because he is weaker. perhaps someone should do a torment creek 3 gen clown build with pinky finger and cheap gin bottle to test viability of 3 gen clown. the same thing can be said about hag. Hag moves at 110% m/s. she cannot chase people. she needs survivors to run into her traps and she plays territorial. territorial is 3 gen focused just like skull merchant. you get hag web-traps instead of skull merchant drones.
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I do and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. After the first time, you know it’s coming, and it’s bigger than the great skillcheck zone. Killer has to travel to the gen and kick the gen to reapply it every time. I’d say this is more a problem with forceable 3gens from the start of the game.
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I forgot about those add ons. I agree those should be reworked because what they encourage.
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No it IS false advertising actually. You don't make someone pay for something then change it thats like paying to get a burger then they hand you a piece of poop wrapped in a tortilla and go "Its part of the package that we get your order wrong.". And what you're suggesting will never fix the problem just destroy killers who already struggle. Keep nerfing any killer who can utilize a 3 gen in any way instead of just...fixing the 3 gen which you're hugely over complicating.
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It really isn't lol.
We already went throught this convo when MoM, Legion and Freddy were reworked.
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Yes yes I know you hate skull merchant and anyone who plays her no need to remind us we've got the message loud and clear
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Yes yes I know you didn't read what I wrote.
It's not false advertising. BHVR is allowed to change things and we've had the conversation before.
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I played against an SM on Gas Haven the other day and it took a similar amount of time. The killer played abysmally from the start clearly just protecting three gens in the centre of the map. The annoying thing was they weren't even that close together but through a combination of her drones and her perks (she was packing Overcharge, call of brine, Corrupt intervention and sloppy) she was able to hold the gens at nothing or close to nothing by infinitely kicking them.
If you took a drone down she immediately put another one up, kicked the gen and walked off. Repeat ad infinitum. It took four of us about 50 mins to whittle the gen up through increasingly risky plays (e.g allowing the exposed status effect and trying to get her to chase/hook). We eventually managed to get the last gen done. But it took four of us to and we struggled. She then basement hooked one of us and camped her through two hook states for the most undeserved kill I've ever witnessed.
I do not understand how her kit has not been amended yet. I don't understand how she has seemingly infinite drones Still. I do not understand how there is no cooldown to being able to use them: whether that be a timer until she gets to use a drone again or a geographical block e.g. no drone can be put up within the radius of a deactivated one for 'x' seconds. There's literally no point in deactivating a drone when she can come back, instantly put another one up whilst not even stopping moving and repeat endlessly. Especially as once you're tagged with a drone battery you can't take down another. It's a completely flawed and illogical concept. She really needs tweaking.
Post edited by jajay119 on4 -
Except she would still be Skull Merchant.
Her perks would be the same, her lore would be the same, her appearance would be the same. She would most likely still have her drones.
Unless you're saying that putting drones on a gen/loop, something that like 10 killers can already do, was the sole reason you're playing her, this seems like hyperbole.
If it were that easy to fix things in this game, we wouldn't have perks being disabled for weeks (Any Means Necessary,) we wouldn't have basic features like a HUD taking 4+ years to be added, we wouldn't have some characters STILL having gamebreaking bugs (Bubba/Twins.)
Its pretty clear that the coding for this game isn't that great, and I don't want any balance changes taking super long just because the devs want to fix it, they should apply temporary changes to problematic killers first (Knight/SM.) Then fix the three-genning, then buff them if they need it. Everyone wins in the long-term, and in the short-term, we aren't seeing 50 minute games.
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"The penalty for DC'ing is less than the SM game" That is sad that she is so poorly designed as to make that true.
Again my usual suggestion to unbreak SM is leave a phantom drone to prevent replacement until the shoulder tracker is removed by pallet vault/down/45s time out. This would force the SM to leave their camp zone in order to set drones in the same locations.
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It's pretty obvious when any killer starts staking out a 3 gen and typically if you break it early you don't get into this dead space where the only thing the killer has to do is patrol those 3 gens.
If this team was as skilled as everyone is saying then they should have been running circles around that killer while pinging away those gens at game start. That 20 mins of 3 gen play would have been at game start and then it would have just snowballed from there as SM lost their one advantage.
Because lets face it she is pretty lackluster killer outside of the one strategy.
Yeah SM needs some reworks to make such a tactic less of a drag, but that's well known already.
If you complete all the other gens and then spend 30 mins trying to break the 3 gen you've played into the strategy and are in for a long game.
My friends and I have done it plenty of times does that mean we are better than "the best players in the world" no but you'd expect players labelled with moniker to not get caught so easily by a really obvious tactic for 50 mins that can be broken in the first 20 with a lil coordination that they are more than capable of.
"but the fact the couldn't for 50 mins means it OP" sure but everyone knew the SM 3 gen is a lil busted already. I'd say it took 50 mins because they didn't play it very well.
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No she wouldn't. We have approximately 1 mehly viable area denial killer (Hag) every other killer has a very basic format of run around searching for survivor, find survivor, hit, repeat. I like killers where every match can be played differently and things are always fresh, SM has a lot that goes into her kit that only improves with add ons (when you actually play her outside of 3 gens) which is why I love her so much because I adore killers with playstyles that can change every match. Yeah you CAN just throw drones at loops or gens but theres much more you can do when it comes to micro management and how you wanna place/adjust everything that without her drones being the way they are just makes her so :/. I don't mind her having zones where she struggles a bit as every killer I feel should, but to essentially destroy her power just to fix something that isn't even an issue with her herself just for it to rinse and repeat isn't gonna help anything.
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I didn't you're right because I know its the same thing it always is. Skull Merchant bad people who bought her deserve to have wasted their money etc etc
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Ah but when does the focus fatigue set in at the start or at the end of the game?
Their skill check success got progressively worse as time wore on.
Giving some early hooks to break the 3 gen earlier probably would have made the later game a cake walk for the team. That would be the sensible play to avoid the protracted 3 gen scenario but they didn't do that.
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Ppl on here like to beat a dead horse when it comes to SM. Honestly, I don't mind ppl asking for a rework bc I too think she needs something but what I do mind is the nerve of asking for a killer to be removed/kill switched when they know a rework would take more than a year to do. Be realistic with your requests, trust me ppl would take you more seriously.
Personally, I don't care some comp team was held in a game for 50min. I honestly hate team eternal. Comp players like them and even Pulsar are all the same in my mind, they are loud and egotistic players who think they are better than anyone else. They think ppl can reach their level of play when reality most ppl can't and won't. A lot of us don't make playing this game a living. Anyway, I'm glad I took a break from dbd. I'm only here to see what ppl are arguing about.
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If they're running the same 3 gen in the beginning as what they are in the end then it's going to be defended just the same. They aren't going to chase or leave the area more often just because the other gens aren't done yet. It's going to be the same thing, drop drones, kick 3 gens, hit the survivors close enough, and only go for downs if they can spare the time. Then return straight back to the 3 gens.
Only now there's the possibility that when the 3 gen is finally broken, the killer just moves to another 3 gen area. Completely running the timer out.
Given a second game it may have gone completely different, the team seems to have developed a strategy over the first game that worked. On the other hand, the killer may have chosen a different map to be more sneaky and/or swap out a perk or something that may have tilted it their way. I'm not really sure why they chose an outdoor map where they could be seen between gens but I don't play the build either so it may be something I don't know.
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I just hate opening the forums and seeing everyone (especially one person here) saying how everyone who plays this specific killer are terrible people and demanding we have our money wasted simply because they find it 'unfun'. Which I think is funny cause when COH was meta and causing hour long games there was radio silence. I guess hour long games are only okay when the survivors are in control of when it ends not the killer?
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I agree with you. I like playing SM and even knight but I get hate for playing them even tho I don't play them in an unfun way. I know I would be pretty upset if they delete SM or killswitch her for a year but these ppl don't care. They only care about their fun. That's why they also want dc penalties gone. They only care about their own fun and see dbd as a single-player game. I even get hate for enjoying legion(who is my main). You can't make anyone in here happy. I bet if they did rework her ppl would continue to complain. Shoot look at Wesker, who most would say is the best design killer in the game, I see a lot of posts about how ppl hate playing against him.
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Sorry fam, I disagree with Pulsar on many things, however in this reply you not only contradict you logic but also plain out lie.
you say that doing a change to something people bought is bad and false advertisement and use CoH as an example, I bought mikaela exclusively because of how OP CoH was, and when they balanced it, I took it as a normal person that understands that is just normal in a game that has constant balance changes, just because some people like som4ething problematic that is no excuse for keeping something ufun/unbalanced.
Next you say that when CoH was on its prime there waas radio silence, what on earth are you saying!, there were like 5 discussion daily on forums, a lot of youtube content and comments on reddit etc on how problematic it was. even then CoH WAS CHANGED so even if we asume the community had no issue with it (which is false) the devs took measures against it, so there is absolutelly no bias in that regard.
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Im pretty sure this guy has said before that facecamping bubba is fine so dont waste your time with this person
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Hold up... How is OVERCHARGE taking 15%? It says 4% for missed skill check. Can someone explain that?
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I think it's because it adds the penalty onto the default 10% missed skillcheck penalty, resulting in 14%. It was 15% but it got toned down and not everyone has realised, since there's little difference
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Crazy because OVERCHARGE literally does nothing for me when I use it. Everybody and their mama can hit the skill check just fine lol.
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Well you gotta consider other factors in this one particular match
Shotgun speaker addon which makes the skillcheck sound silent, it can throw off your muscle memory.
Hitting the skillcheck REPEATEDLY can get annoying, I can hit it consistently too but it's a game of odds and eventually you will get unlucky. I've seen some people already mention the skillchecks position can alter your chance of hitting it, the closer it is to where the needle starts, the less likely you are to be be able to hit it
Also again this killer did practically nothing but kick gens, most people don't play like this, at least not since the nerfs. Most games won't have all these rolls of the dice so to speak.
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Agree to disagree then ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ , I personally believe the needs of the many outweigh the enjoyment of a few, especially if there's always potential to go back and do more work on her later.
With current trajectories I'm sure something is coming anyways, I don't see her enough for it to really tank my enjoyment of the game so I'll just wait for it.
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Perhaps you should read it, as it did not pertain to SM except in a tangential way.
This conversation has been had before over Legion, Freddy and MoM.
Mettle of Man was the biggest debate. Legion was hated enough that it wasn't a huge conversation then. MoM was disgustingly OP for a while after release, justtttt long enough to get a ton of revenue and then they nerfed it into obscurity. This prompted a huge debate over false advertising.
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Where have I said that people who play SM are terrible people?
I'm pretty sure I've gone out of my way to say that you are allowed to enjoy and like Killers. I mained Legion for a long time and people do NOT like playing against him. It's fine that you like SM, but you can't let that enjoyment blind you to the glaring issues she has.
Like I said, I've mained Legion in the past and Knight is one of my favorite Killers in rotation to play. Do I think either of them are good and healthy gameplay design? No. Would I encourage BHVR to make more Killers like them? No. I like to play them, but I acknowledge that they have fundamental issues that cause problems. I don't think either are quite on Skull Merchant's level, but they are issues nonetheless.
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Yeah I'm expecting to play against more now after this Eternal game. I rarely see SM but more people will now copy this Skull Merchant and waste everyone's time for sh**s and giggles
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Most people didn't buy Skull Merchant with money tho tbf lmao
I get your point but it's a live service game and I'm p sure they make it clear somewhere that content can and will be changed whenever they see fit. As long as you still keep the content you paid for it's not illegal as far as I'm aware
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